Peer-to-peer payments are a big thing these days. I pay you, you pay me, and never the banks shall touch your cash. Billon, a Polish fintech company, is doing their own flavor of P2P by connecting Twitch streamers and other content creators with an audience that can easily tip them using a seamless system of payment.
Founded by Andrzej Horoszczak, Maciek Luczak, and Robert Kaluza, the company has been working on the thorny problem of regulatory frameworks and cryptocurrencies since 2012. Horoszczak sold his medical publishing business to start Billon and they have found an interesting niche in the gaming community.
They recently brought on David Putts in Europe as Chairman. Putts founded three banks in Europe and spent 10 years at McKinsey. The company has raised angel funding and recently headquartered in London.
Horoszczak sees his company as one of the first fully regulated P2P payments companies, which is a hard thing to be.
“Billon has created the world’s first blockchain enabling government currency transactions that is compliant with regulations. This is important – mass adoption can only occur if clients are using their existing mobile phones and favorite local currency,” said Horoszczak. “Today, payments are a broken end-to-end value chain full of intermediaries, payment insurers, liquidity providers, clearing agents, settlement agents, and account holders. Imagine giving the power to truly provide an end-to-end solution…and eliminate all the cost, risk, and hassle that exists today.”
To gather tips, Twitch users simply add a button to their streams and users can top up their accounts using various methods and then send that money on to their friends. The system allows receivers to cash out in multiple ways including via cash, pre-paid cards, vouchers, and checks. They have 1,300 users after a soft launch and they are working in the sub-$10 electronic transaction market, a huge pool of users that want to send a little money without messy bank fees. The system also allows for interactive chat between the Twitch user and his or her fans.
Clearly Twitch is only the first implementation for the platform and they will begin more partnerships this month. Sending small amounts of cash to cool people is an interesting market and Billon aims to lay down the piping to make that happen.